The Chinese navy has seized
an underwater drone in plain sight of the American sailors who had
deployed it in international waters, in a seemingly brazen message to
the incoming Trump administration.

According to a US defence official, the unmanned glider had come to
the surface of the water in the South China Sea and was about to be
retrieved by the USNS Bowditch, an oceanographic and surveillance
ship, when a Chinese naval vessel that had been shadowing the Bowditch
put a small boat in the water.

Chinese sailors in the small boat came alongside the drone and
grabbed it despite the radioed protests from the Bowditch that it was
US property in international waters. The incident happened about 100
miles north-west of the Philippines’ port of Subic Bay.

The US has issued a formal protest and demanded the return of the
glider.

Peter Cook, the Pentagon press secretary, said the Bowditch made
radio contact with the Chinese ship and asked for the glider to be
returned. “The radio contact was acknowledged by the [Chinese] navy
ship, but the request was ignored,” Cook said.

“The UUV [unmanned underwater vehicle] is a sovereign immune vessel
of the United States. We call upon China to return our UUV
immediately, and to comply with all of its obligations under
international law.”

The aggressive Chinese gesture comes at a time of rising tensions
between China and the US in the South China Sea, where Beijing has
claimed ownership of a number of reefs and small islands – which it is
in the process of militarising – while the US navy has been
conducting patrols nearby to assert freedom of navigation in the sea
lanes.

The tension has spiked since Donald Trump was elected in November.
The US president-elect quickly broke a 37-year protocol by taking a
call from the president of Taiwan, and openly questioned Washington’s
longstanding “one China” policy that does not recognise Taiwan as a
separate state. Beijing has signalled it would respond dramatically if
Trump implements a break in policy once he takes office on 20 January.
In recent days, China has conducted bomber patrols close to Taiwan in
a flexing of its military muscle.

The seizure of the drone is also a reflection of the struggle
occurring under the surface ofthe South China Sea.
As China develops a strategic submarine fleet, with the potential to
carry nuclear missiles out into the Pacific Ocean, the US has built up
a monitoring network designed to spot Chinese submarines as they leave
their bases. Drones are key to the network, and there is a race under
way
between major naval powers to develop drones that can work
together in swarms and “see” long distances through the water.
Underwater gliders are drones that can stay underwater on the lookout
for submarines for long periods of time.

“This looks like signalling from the Chinese in response to Trump’s
Taiwan call,” said Bonnie Glaser, the director of the China Power
Project at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. “It is
hard to believe this is the action of an independent commander. The
Chinese now have much better control over the military, particularly
the navy. It is in China’s interest to send signals before Trump is
inaugurated, so that he gets the message and be more restrained once
he is office.”

Sebastian Brixey-Williams of the British American Security
Information Council said: “Nuclear states are increasing anxious about
unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs, or underwater drones) autonomously
tracking their nuclear ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs), making
them vulnerable to antisubmarine warfare. This is an issue for China
in particular, whose SSBN fleet is small and noisy. Though the USNS
Bowditch is an oceanographic ship and may sound harmless, the kinds of
data it is collecting will make Chinese submarines easier to find over
time.

“China therefore accomplishes a number of things by seizing a US
underwater drone,” Brixey-Williams said. “It allows Chinese scientists
to better understand the US’s offensive technical capabilities in this
area, and potentially allows them to reverse-engineer them, bringing
gains in both the commercial and military spheres.”

Glaser pointed out that the Chinese have frequently tested the US
when there is a new administration. In the early months of the George
W Bush administration, in 2001, the Bowditch was involved in a
close encounter with a Chinese frigate which turned on its gun
control radar and forced it to retreat. A week later there was a
collision between a US spy plane and Chinese warplane off China’s
Hainan island.

At about the same point in the early Obama administration, in March
2009, a number of Chinese navy ships
harassed another US oceanographic vessel, the USNS Impeccable,
coming as close as 50ft away, trying to snag its acoustic equipment
with hooks, waving flags and demanding the Impeccable leave the area.